


Out of the Shadows

by CyclonicJet



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-02 01:38:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15786309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CyclonicJet/pseuds/CyclonicJet
Summary: Editing for A03 is a right pain. It looks so ugly compared to the original transcript. Bu the story is there is what counts. Does anyone know if you are allowed to upload an original story, with totally original characters, based on an existent fandom? So like it takes place hundred of years later with none of the original games cast but is still technically in the same universe.





	Out of the Shadows

She crouched in the shadows watching the Brutes shift around below her. A voice buzzed in her helmet “Adriana. You have eyes on?”  
   “Affirmative. They’re hauling it on board now.” she replied.  
   “Roger that. Mike’s about to kill the lights. You ready?”  
   “Affirmative.”

  
With a snap the lights on board the CCS Battlecruisers main hangar deck cracked off leaving the area in near total darkness. Only the luminescent purple glow of the grav lift offered any sort of visibility. Before the Brutes could even react she started picking them off one by one with lethal efficiency, the beam rifle she had pilfered whirring loudly with the high rate of fire. They fell down like dominoes while the survivors began running around like headless chickens, trying desperately to identify the source of the gun fire.

  
She was so efficient in fact that the rifle itself suddenly overheated in her hands, but it was irrelevant anyway, the thing was out of ammunition. Dropping it from her grasp she pulled out her knife, then she stopped and waited a beat. She mentally ticked off second in her head then leant forward and fell towards the deck below. She slammed down on top of a brute who had ran over to investigate where the rifle had fallen from. A useful cushion from a fall that high. As she plowed down into the brute she jabbed her knife into its jugular, causing it to gurgle violently and fall over dead.

  
Not even stopping to catch her breath she somersaulted forward and stabbed out at a startled grunt, cutting its breathing mask off. The creature started staggering around gasping for air, it was so preoccupied choking to death it stumbled in front of a plasma bolt from one of its fellow grunts. The plasma chewed through the methane housing on its back and promptly exploded. The explosion easily consumed two other grunts that had also been nearby and set a third on fire. The heat and blast wave of the detonation were absorbed by her shields which flared widely from the close proximity.

  
Now she had to move. Fast. That explosion would surely highlight her location, like a beacon in the dark. Sure enough shots were soon blazing in her direction. She got to her feet and ran for cover as ever more bolts of energy flew towards her, most missed but the odd one or two impacted causing her shields to flare even more violently. She skidded behind a nearby wraith just as the shields collapsed completely.

  
   “Jai. I’m going to need a little help in here!” she called into the comms.  
It was Mike who responded though. “I think I might be able to help. Think you can grab onto something fixed down to the deck?” She glanced around and spotted a strut opposite her. She dashed over to it as her shields finally began to cycle back to life. She gripped on to it tight. “I’m latched.” she said.

   “Hold tight now.” he replied.

Suddenly a squad of four brute rounded the wraith towards her, all of them levelling spike rifles at her. But before any of them could pull the trigger a raucous noise filled the hanger bay and a powerful wind sprung up. The atmosphere started venting. The brutes suddenly vanished as they were sucked away with the sudden wind. The wraith also began to shift slowly from its station, and then promptly began skidding loudly across the deck. She watched as it approached the gravity lift entrance and vanish beyond. Gripping on for dear life she watched dozens of grunts, brutes, and even the odd skirmisher go sailing through the air and out into the vacuum of space beyond. Then, only when the last of them had flown out into the void did the latch snap shut.

  
She relaxed her iron grip on the strut and wandered around for a few steps to regain her footing. “When did we hit orbit?” she asked.  
   “About two minutes ago. You were a little too preoccupied to notice. Jai took the bridge and initiated an immediate ascent pattern.” Mike replied.  
   “Well I can’t argue with results.” she said staring around the now nearly empty hanger. Only the strange forerunner artifact remained, hovering in place a short way from the grav lift exit. It looked like it hadn’t even been phased by the rushing wind around it.  
   “What about the other hostiles aboard?” she said.  
   “Dead or dying. I vented most of the atmosphere on board. Be sure to keep your helmet on on your way up to the bridge.”  
   “Copy that.” she said walking over to the artifact.

Grey team had now been out of contact with friendly forces for at least four years. Operating deep behind enemy lines they had to garner much of their news on current events from covenant remnant forces or insurrectionist facilities. Operational independence like this was a luxury no other Spartans enjoyed. It was what made there squad unique. But times were moving on, the new generation IV’s they had heard about were already set to make them obsolete. Ready made super soldiers were now the norm it seemed. A unit like Grey team was becoming a veritable relic in the post war era. But still they executed there primary tasking as best they could. Disruption and elimination of elements hostile to humanity. Preferably before they had a chance to become a problem for ONI, and often before ONI even knew they existed. That's why they were hijacking this battlecruiser. Whatever the now former crew of this ship had been doing stealing forerunner tech was probably not in humanity's best interests.

  
The device itself was smooth and elegant. Four curved struts of bronzed gold danced around in a circle, orbiting a bright sphere of burnished silver at it centre. Whatever it did though was ineffable to her. Her job was just to procure the thing. What they did with it was up to Jai.  
   “Jai. What do you want me to do with this thing?” she asked.  
   “Nothing. Leave it be. Mike’s plotting us a course to a known ONI facility. We’ll drop it off there for them and bug out.”  
   “Copy that.” she replied.  
   “Stand by.” Mike called down the comms. “We’re entering slipspace now.”

In an instant the world began to spin violently. Adriana found herself flung to and fro across the deck, slamming into walls and pylons along the way. She thought at one point she even hit the deck and ceiling, but she couldn’t be sure, she was far too dazed to tell. She could distantly hear a voice yelling at her, but she couldn’t grasp who it was or what it was saying. Then with a sudden snap the world righted itself and she slammed back down hard onto the deck. She gasped and tried to get up but collapsed under own weight.

She didn’t need the data readout in her helmet to know she had cracked a good portion of her ribs, she could feel it clearly enough. She stared up and around and her eyes landed on the Forerunner artifact. It was glowing a magnificent blue. A blue so pretty that she couldn't believe it. It washed over her and she felt a suddenly calmness. She relaxed under its beauty. Then the light and the world around her abruptly vanished.

She was standing on an island. Green grass wafted in the breeze around her. Gazing up she could she was standing on some sort of giant ring structure. This must have one of those Halo installations she had read reports of.  
As she made to start moving a voice rang out in her head. The hard mechanical voice of an AI. “Unauthorised access detected. Entity. You have do not possess the necessary authorization to utilise this facilities transceiver functions. Please evict yourself at once.”  
   “I’m sorry. Who is this? Where am I?” she asked confusedly to the disembodied voice.  
   “Utter nonsense. This is a secure facility.” it said. It didn’t seem to be talking to her anymore, rather to another unseen being. “If the entity will not willingly evict itself I will do it myself.”

A loud screeching suddenly filled her ears, her hands moved to cover them but the screeching was still just as loud. Then in a flash of light the island vanished and so did the noise. Now she stood in a dark room. Only blinking red lights along the wall suggested it even was a room at all and not just a void. Something suddenly shifted in the darkness. Something big. A new voice rang out. A voice that made her skin crawl for it sounded ancient and evil. Full of malice and hate. “A guest in my purgatory? I should be so honoured. Tell me, to whom do I so graciously play host?”

  
She didn’t respond. She did not trust this thing whatever it was. Everything about its voice felt wrong and sickening. She was not one to scare easily, she was a Spartan after all. She had seen things during her life few others could ever hope to deal with. But this thing unnerved her in a way she had never thought possible. “Why so quiet?" it breathed. "Do I frighten you? Perhaps not half as much as I should...”. Something again shifted in the darkness. “No matter.” it said, its voice raising drastically. “I will learn what I desire the hard way!”

  
Her head abruptly split open with pain as she felt her mind being scoured by what felt like crawling tentacles. Something was rifling through her head like books in a library. “Aw yes. So much knowledge.” it drawled. “You have proven to be of great assistance to me Spartan 111 ‘Adriana’. Perhaps in time you will help me in other ways...”  
   “NO!” she screamed her head threatening to burst with the intense pain.  
The voice chuckled. “Defiance. A trait I can see you exemplify best. But your refutation is irrelevant. You have already assisted me in ways beyond measure. Soon this ring will be but a distant dream, and your forebears folly will be laid bare.”  
It suddenly started laughing. A horrendous and maniacal laugh that threatened to drain all hope from her entirely.  
   “NO!” she screamed again. “NO! NO! NO!” She continued to scream the word over and over, each time a little fainter than the last as she grasped her head tightly between her hands. The laugh began to rescind, fading away into the darkness. Eventually the pain and the creature vanished entirely. She was alone in the darkness once more, frightened and scared.

She opened her eyes to see Jai standing above her. Her helmet was off. To her side Mike was making readings on a medical screen, an image of her was transposed onto it.  
   “Adriana. Are you all right?” Jai said with full authoritative calm in his voice. She groaned softly and made to get up but again collapsed back under her weight.  
   “I’ll live.” she mumbled.  
   “Barely.” Mike said.  
   “What happened.” she said. Her head was throbbing, she felt dazed and confused. She guessed she must still be in shock.  
   “I don’t know.” Jai said. “We think the artifact messed with the local gravity down here in the hanger. We had to pull an emergency slip exit just to stop you from being pummelled to death.”  
Her head began to clear a little and she started to think more clearly. Then the memories of the laughing shadow and what it had said came flooding back to her. She moved to bolt right up. She achieved it, but her muscles raged in agony for it.  
She breathed hard and gasped for air. “It’s coming. We have to stop it before it escapes!”  
   “Stop what?” Mike asked concernedly.  
   “The creature in the darkness. It said it was on a ring! I think it means one of the Halo installations. It’s going to escape!” she exclaimed.  
   “What creature are you talking about? You never left the ship?” Jai also said his voice laced with concern.  
   “I can’t explain it, but I just saw it. It told me it was going to escape. I don’t know what it is, but I know for sure it’ll destroy everything unless we stop it right now!”  
   “Whoa whoa whoa. Ok. I believe you.” Jai said. “But even if we could stop whatever this thing is, we don’t where it is. You said a Halo ring right? But which ring? Only three of them are accounted for. The others could be anywhere”  
   “I don’t know but I-” she began. She stopped as an incredibly vivid image entered her head. It was a map of sorts, a chart leading through the stars. At its end lay a planet covered completely in water, and orbiting far above it a ring.  
Where that image had come from she had no idea. Maybe it was imprint left over in her mind by the device. Wherever it had come from, she now knew where they needed to go.  
   “I know where we need to go.” she said. She was sure of it.  
   “How do you know-” Mike started.  
   “I’m not sure, I just do.” she exclaimed. It wasn’t just the pain that was causing her breathing to be laboured. The whole experience with the creature had rattled her utterly to her core. She felt like that scared child she had been all those years ago when the spooks had nabbed her.

  
Mike and Jai exchanged a brief look of concern. Then Jai leaned down and looked at her again. “All right then Adriana. We trust you. Lead the way.”

**Author's Note:**

> Editing for A03 is a right pain. It looks so ugly compared to the original transcript. Bu the story is there is what counts. Does anyone know if you are allowed to upload an original story, with totally original characters, based on an existent fandom? So like it takes place hundred of years later with none of the original games cast but is still technically in the same universe.


End file.
